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Salesforce.com today announced a three-pronged Government Cloud strategy that includes a dedicated, multi-tenant government instance, a government apps marketplace and a government partner program.

The Government Cloud instance comprises dedicated databases and supporting infrastructure that will allow US federal, state, and local agencies to rapidly deploy the latest social and mobile technologies, while complying with regulatory and compliance requirements. 

The Government Cloud apps marketplace, also known as AppExchange for Government, is targeted at the public sector where government agencies can find, try and deploy cloud apps that meet their needs.

Lastly, Salesforce.com introduced the Salesforce Government Partner Accelerator Program to train 1,000 integrators by the end of 2012 to provide government IT support.

"The bureaucracy of legacy government IT is preventing agencies from embracing innovative technologies that deliver immediate value," said Vivek Kundra, executive vice president, emerging markets, salesforce.com. "We must end the era where government spends millions of dollars and waits years for IT projects that never work. Now, salesforce.com offers a solution the government needs to break down barriers to innovation and eliminate wasteful IT spending." Vivek Kundra was the first CIO of the US government from 2009 to 2011 under the US President Barack Obama.

The government instance will be built on Salesforce.com's multi-tenant infrastructure, which will allow agencies to scale instantly and get automatic upgrades.

The dedicated, multi-tenant government cloud instance will provide separate application and database servers supporting government customers, housed within Salesforce.com's US production data centers. Using secure software access controls, government data will be logically separated on the government instance, meaning an agency's data will reside in common databases along with other government customers, but will not be accessible to the other customers.

The dedicated government instance will offer the same high level of security, reliability and availability as other salesforce.com instances and will support existing security and privacy standards and certifications including Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) requirements, SSAE 16 (formerly SAS 70), ISO 27001, PCI-DSS Level 1, Safe Harbor, and TRUSTe.

The new AppExchange for Government provides a central cloud app marketplace where government agencies can drive their social transformations and reduce costs by quickly identifying applications to meet their needs.

Launched with an initial 60 apps specifically for government and public sector agencies, the AppExchange for Government apps range from 

helpdesks and asset management, to program and project management, and constituent relations.

Some of the available apps are BasicGov, which controls citizen access;  DocuSign, an eSignature application that helps to speed up transactions and track documents in the cloud; SchoolForce, which is a student information system comprising modules like attendance, behavior, homework, student records and grade book, as well as collaboration and document management.

To help governments deploy cloud technologies, Salesforce target to train 1,000 integrators by the end of 2012 under its Government Partner Accelerator Program. The program will train integrators on social and 

mobile salesforce.com cloud solutions for government.